Unfinished books are an inevitable part of reading. Perhaps you took a chance on a completely unknown author, or perhaps something everyone else praised just wasn’t for you. If we only read books we knew we’d like, we’d never discover anything new. Indeed, in some extreme expression of this strategy, we’d never read anything.
But is there a “right” way of abandoning a book you’ve started?
My own long (and occasionally painful) experience with unfinished books leads me to say: most definitely! This doesn’t mean there’s an objectively right or wrong way (hence the quotation marks above). As with everything else in literature, your mileage may vary. You are the sole authority on what “the right” way is, just as, if you’re a writer, you’re the sole authority on your own work. I’m here only to offer you the method; not the criteria.
And so, with this mini disclaimer out of the way, let’s see my way of dealing with unfinished books. You can then adapt it to your own preferences and make sure you’ll never abandon reading a book for the… wrong reasons!
